From The Straits Times
Aug 28, 2005
Best is yet to be, says MM
If you are an STI subscriber, you can read the full text here.
He didn't say Auspicium Melioris Aevi, Filiae Melioris Aevi or even (insert chinese communist slogan here).
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Best is yet to be, says MM
He didn't say Auspicium Melioris Aevi, Filiae Melioris Aevi or even (insert chinese communist slogan here).
Saturday, August 27, 2005
the parable of the durians
Yuhui has written a lovely satire on something very close to my heart. Go read it everyone, and see if you get it. This post is dedicated to Carpe Diem.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
google enters the ring
Over the last week since their second quarter profits were announced, I've watched MediaRing's stock climb to a 1-yr high of 19.5 cents.
I remember MediaRing well. Back when I was in college, it was one of the first companies in the world to launch VoIP software for long-distance calling. It was also a Singaporean company and it made me swell with pride, even as I was saving money on long-distance calls.
After many troubled years, it's finally turned a profit. So I'd say if you're holding the stock, you better sell out now because Google just muscled into the VoIP market and the competition just got a whole lot stiffer. Or you can wait until Google buys Skype; that will definitely be the killer app.
I hope Google never decides to go into soundcards.
I remember MediaRing well. Back when I was in college, it was one of the first companies in the world to launch VoIP software for long-distance calling. It was also a Singaporean company and it made me swell with pride, even as I was saving money on long-distance calls.
After many troubled years, it's finally turned a profit. So I'd say if you're holding the stock, you better sell out now because Google just muscled into the VoIP market and the competition just got a whole lot stiffer. Or you can wait until Google buys Skype; that will definitely be the killer app.
I hope Google never decides to go into soundcards.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
ndp rally speech
At a glance, I'd have to say that this year's National Day Rally Speech was rather tame compared to the storm churned up this time last year. Although it is clear that the government has painted the broad strokes for the coming year, there was a lack of policy backing, or detailed explanation of how the normative concepts that PM put forward would be implemented. And the devil is in the details.
Compare the 2004 and 2005 speeches. The edited excerpts are also available from STI.
In 2004, we were flooded with a slew of new initiatives: Teach less, learn more; the impending casino decision, baby subsidies and most importantly, the 5-day week. This year it becomes apparent that our entire population needs to gear up for a tourism-based economy, with education supporting a service culture, redeveloped shopping areas and a vibrant global city. How so is not particularly clear.
Well, I'm sure the maiden speech had to be the best. I hope that the year ahead will be no less exciting.
Compare the 2004 and 2005 speeches. The edited excerpts are also available from STI.
In 2004, we were flooded with a slew of new initiatives: Teach less, learn more; the impending casino decision, baby subsidies and most importantly, the 5-day week. This year it becomes apparent that our entire population needs to gear up for a tourism-based economy, with education supporting a service culture, redeveloped shopping areas and a vibrant global city. How so is not particularly clear.
Well, I'm sure the maiden speech had to be the best. I hope that the year ahead will be no less exciting.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
my take on talent
My next post was going to be my insightful and illuminating political-economic analysis of PM's NDP Rally Speech. Unfortunately, my attention has been sidetracked by some other blogs and IM conversations about talent and marriage, so I shall write my take on that first. And I'll analyse the speech some other time if I ever get down to reading it.
When I was a little primary school kid, I had this entire series of Chinese short story books. My mother used topay incentivise me fifty cents for every book I read. So I read a fair number, but my Chinese is as crap as ever. Of all the numerous books I read, only one story remains in my mind to this day, 20 years later.
Lack of talent has always been a bugbear to me. I know I'm probably above average in most things I've tried in my life, but at the same time I've never ever risen to the pinnacle of anything. And most of all, much as I like music, I could never ever develop enough skill at any instrument to play for the enjoyment of others. Oh, and my singing is even worse. So even though I'm pretty good at other stuff like academics and sports, I've never been able to shake off the feeling of being a lousy jackofalltradesmasterofnone. Nevertheless, I've come to terms with my normality because seriously, would you rather be Joe Average or an autistic savant?
It's like that saying I always hear - "life is fair". Most of the time I hear it, it refers to girls. If she sounds good on the phone, she must be ugly. If she looks good from the back, she must be ugly from the front. If she has a good figure, she must be ugly. My, there must be a lot of ugly girls out there. With talent, it's a bit different. Everybody gets to make a personal choice what aspect of themselves they would like to develop and if you choose to play computer games instead of musical instruments or sports, or read comics instead of books, you have to live with your choices - even if they didn't seem like such a big deal back then. A good friend lamented to me once that he had wasted all his time playing computer games - imagine how good he could have become at the guitar or at something else, if he had spent his time more wisely? Of course, this same friend is still getting straight A's at a top engineering school. He also made more money from selling Everquest equipment on eBay than from his internship at Accenture. It's not exactly a sustainable career, but no sympathies there.
So everyone is talented in their own ways and there are usually tradeoffs to be made. There is no way your can measure one person's net worth against another - it's true that some people are worth more money, but is Mother Teresa any less a person than Bill Gates? This brings me to marriage and what I'm looking for in my ideal partner. Just like everyone else, it would be nice if I could find a partner who is good-looking, smart, sporty, rich and of course with a great personality thrown in. It would be nice to find someone with all that and more, but the most important thing is to find someone I can respect. And being a guy, the hardest thing is finding a person I can respect, while at the same time not feeling marginalised or inferior in comparison, because the male ego is fragile.
So it's wonderful that everyone has their own strengths, so I can probably find someone who is a talented musician worthy of my admiration and yet remain secure in the knowledge that I am still better at other more important skills like programming or foosball and hence worthy of reciprocation. That's when I can start a happy family.
Of course, every so often you run into someone special. Apart from playing four instruments, she went to the top US engineering school (so she is smarter and her programming is better), was head prefect and on the tennis team of a top girls school (so she is better both with people and sports) and she still manages to be pretty and have wonderful personality. That's when you realise that life is really not fair and you better try something else like cooking.
And here's my own take on the peanut thing: I can measure my self-worth in muah chee powder.
When I was a little primary school kid, I had this entire series of Chinese short story books. My mother used to
There was a little boy (I forget his name, let's call him Xiao Ming like all other boys in primary school) who was very bad at math. He wanted very much to be a good student. One day some aliens came by in a UFO and said they could help him. (If this narrative seems disjointed, I'm sorry - I don't remember the story that well.) He told them how he wanted to be good at Math, so using their incredibly advanced ET technology they performed an operation directly on his brain. And as promised, he became a great math student. Unfortunately he soon discovered that he had lost his skills at table tennis, because apparently you can't have everything.So the moral of the story is that you shouldn't trade a useful skill like a sport for something useless like Math. I think I can relate to this because I'm good at table tennis and suck at math.
Lack of talent has always been a bugbear to me. I know I'm probably above average in most things I've tried in my life, but at the same time I've never ever risen to the pinnacle of anything. And most of all, much as I like music, I could never ever develop enough skill at any instrument to play for the enjoyment of others. Oh, and my singing is even worse. So even though I'm pretty good at other stuff like academics and sports, I've never been able to shake off the feeling of being a lousy jackofalltradesmasterofnone. Nevertheless, I've come to terms with my normality because seriously, would you rather be Joe Average or an autistic savant?
It's like that saying I always hear - "life is fair". Most of the time I hear it, it refers to girls. If she sounds good on the phone, she must be ugly. If she looks good from the back, she must be ugly from the front. If she has a good figure, she must be ugly. My, there must be a lot of ugly girls out there. With talent, it's a bit different. Everybody gets to make a personal choice what aspect of themselves they would like to develop and if you choose to play computer games instead of musical instruments or sports, or read comics instead of books, you have to live with your choices - even if they didn't seem like such a big deal back then. A good friend lamented to me once that he had wasted all his time playing computer games - imagine how good he could have become at the guitar or at something else, if he had spent his time more wisely? Of course, this same friend is still getting straight A's at a top engineering school. He also made more money from selling Everquest equipment on eBay than from his internship at Accenture. It's not exactly a sustainable career, but no sympathies there.
So everyone is talented in their own ways and there are usually tradeoffs to be made. There is no way your can measure one person's net worth against another - it's true that some people are worth more money, but is Mother Teresa any less a person than Bill Gates? This brings me to marriage and what I'm looking for in my ideal partner. Just like everyone else, it would be nice if I could find a partner who is good-looking, smart, sporty, rich and of course with a great personality thrown in. It would be nice to find someone with all that and more, but the most important thing is to find someone I can respect. And being a guy, the hardest thing is finding a person I can respect, while at the same time not feeling marginalised or inferior in comparison, because the male ego is fragile.
So it's wonderful that everyone has their own strengths, so I can probably find someone who is a talented musician worthy of my admiration and yet remain secure in the knowledge that I am still better at other more important skills like programming or foosball and hence worthy of reciprocation. That's when I can start a happy family.
Of course, every so often you run into someone special. Apart from playing four instruments, she went to the top US engineering school (so she is smarter and her programming is better), was head prefect and on the tennis team of a top girls school (so she is better both with people and sports) and she still manages to be pretty and have wonderful personality. That's when you realise that life is really not fair and you better try something else like cooking.
And here's my own take on the peanut thing: I can measure my self-worth in muah chee powder.
faceoff
When two cars meet on Singapore's crowded roadways, it is common courtesy for one to back into a niche to let the other by. Not so for these two cars:
The other unwritten rule of the road is for the smaller car to give way. But which is smaller, the BMW or the Merc? So in the end they just had a faceoff for a good ten minutes while other frustrated drivers reversed (see other car in picture) to find alternate routes and curious neighbours poked their heads out in anticipation of the confrontation.
The other unwritten rule of the road is for the smaller car to give way. But which is smaller, the BMW or the Merc? So in the end they just had a faceoff for a good ten minutes while other frustrated drivers reversed (see other car in picture) to find alternate routes and curious neighbours poked their heads out in anticipation of the confrontation.
iPod Flea
It's been weeks since my sister first showed this to me and I'm continually amazed that most of my friends still have not seen or heard of the ground-breaking iPod Flea.
I'm tired of emailing this to people. If you haven't already seen it, you must.
The New York Times > Technology > Multimedia > Video
Guest Video: The iPod Flea Ad SpoofThis week, David Pogue has arranged for a special guest video artist: Scott Kelby, Photoshop maven. Last week, as he keynoted his own Mac Design conference, he played a hilarious Apple ad spoof for something called the iPod Flea, which I'm pleased to offer in its Web debut.
Monday, August 22, 2005
the folly of intellectual property
This is a little late in coming, I've been away. Last week Yuhui brought to my attention that IPOS had issued a statement that ownership of a CD does not come with the rights to rip the CD (i.e. convert to digital computer format). This means that almost everyone carrying around commercial music on their digital devices if violating the law. Although I couldn't find the actual release, I have since confirmed this with my friend at IPOS.
I think this is an extremely disturbing and myopic regulation. First of all, it should have been drawn to the attention of the public when portable media players were first popularised, to pre-empt the purchase of these gadgets under misguided notions of legality. There must now be tens of thousands of people using portable media players and unless the police conducts a massive crackdown, it is unlikely that these people are going to waste their investment by abandoning digital music, just because IPOS has recently issued this clarification. Not without a draconian crackdown at least.
The solution of course is to download the music from online sites, since these are distributed with their own license. The drawback to this is that all foreign sites I have tried reject my credit card because it is a Singapore address (even though it is a US credit card). Our own Soundbuzz is still quite lacking in terms of variety and currency. It also distributed only in WMA format, which will be a problem for iPodders and it does not include the artist's name in the filename! Until better sites become available, this will not be a viable alternative to buying CDs.
The most likely outcome is that people will start asking themselves why they are buying the CDs at all, if it gives them no legal rights to the music. If they are going to listen to mp3s anyway and owning the CD does not legitimise this, then what for buy the CD? After all, there are plenty of file-sharing technologies supplying a huge variety of music freely available on the internet.
I think this is an extremely disturbing and myopic regulation. First of all, it should have been drawn to the attention of the public when portable media players were first popularised, to pre-empt the purchase of these gadgets under misguided notions of legality. There must now be tens of thousands of people using portable media players and unless the police conducts a massive crackdown, it is unlikely that these people are going to waste their investment by abandoning digital music, just because IPOS has recently issued this clarification. Not without a draconian crackdown at least.
The solution of course is to download the music from online sites, since these are distributed with their own license. The drawback to this is that all foreign sites I have tried reject my credit card because it is a Singapore address (even though it is a US credit card). Our own Soundbuzz is still quite lacking in terms of variety and currency. It also distributed only in WMA format, which will be a problem for iPodders and it does not include the artist's name in the filename! Until better sites become available, this will not be a viable alternative to buying CDs.
The most likely outcome is that people will start asking themselves why they are buying the CDs at all, if it gives them no legal rights to the music. If they are going to listen to mp3s anyway and owning the CD does not legitimise this, then what for buy the CD? After all, there are plenty of file-sharing technologies supplying a huge variety of music freely available on the internet.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
singlish
After reading this excellent discourse on Singlish on Singapore Angle, I have realised that I am, in fact, bilingual. In the PM's own words:
Since I'm pretty good at switching from English to Singlish, and discounting my other language inabilities, I guess I am effectively bilingual.
My own experience is that even Singaporeans like myself who choose to speak perfect Queen's English can still be unintelligible to foreigners. It really boils down to two things: accent and speed. I read somewhere that Singaporeans are the 4th fastest speakers of English in the world, so we need to slow down. And with regards to accent, I used to think it unpatriotic to bastardise my speech pattern just to be understood, but after a while convenience won over nationalism.
Singaporeans can also write very well. In my freshmen writing class, one of the students who did a peer review on my paper told me she thought I was the best writer in the class. That came from a person that had me flipping the dictionary several times to grade her own piece. This experience is not unique and I think we do owe a gratitude of thanks to the MOE system teaching us how to properly structure and present ideas in writing.
But perhaps the biggest issue to address is that while Singaporeans are conversant and even fluent, few of us are articulate. Anyone taking classes with high components of class participation knows we get creamed by Americans all the time. Even the dumb ones. Because they are willing to go out on a limb and express even half formed ideas - and they somehow manage to fluff their way through and sound ok. While we are trying to put together an oratorical masterpiece, someone else comes along and steals the glory.
It's great that the government recognises that our English is not always useable on a world stage. But to develop the next generation of successful global citizens, we really need to work on presentation skills and public speaking as well. Lah.
"It is much easier to speak proper English all the time, than to speak sloppily most of the time, and then switch to proper English for formal occasions. Because to do the latter is almost like learning two languages."
Since I'm pretty good at switching from English to Singlish, and discounting my other language inabilities, I guess I am effectively bilingual.
My own experience is that even Singaporeans like myself who choose to speak perfect Queen's English can still be unintelligible to foreigners. It really boils down to two things: accent and speed. I read somewhere that Singaporeans are the 4th fastest speakers of English in the world, so we need to slow down. And with regards to accent, I used to think it unpatriotic to bastardise my speech pattern just to be understood, but after a while convenience won over nationalism.
Singaporeans can also write very well. In my freshmen writing class, one of the students who did a peer review on my paper told me she thought I was the best writer in the class. That came from a person that had me flipping the dictionary several times to grade her own piece. This experience is not unique and I think we do owe a gratitude of thanks to the MOE system teaching us how to properly structure and present ideas in writing.
But perhaps the biggest issue to address is that while Singaporeans are conversant and even fluent, few of us are articulate. Anyone taking classes with high components of class participation knows we get creamed by Americans all the time. Even the dumb ones. Because they are willing to go out on a limb and express even half formed ideas - and they somehow manage to fluff their way through and sound ok. While we are trying to put together an oratorical masterpiece, someone else comes along and steals the glory.
It's great that the government recognises that our English is not always useable on a world stage. But to develop the next generation of successful global citizens, we really need to work on presentation skills and public speaking as well. Lah.
Monday, August 15, 2005
no more tomorrows
If anyone is wondering about parts 3 and 4 of our critique of Tomorrow.sg, we have put the matter on hold for now. Since our comments are getting tucked away in an obscure section of the site, they are unlikely to generate the constructive debate that we initially hoped and hence I have returned to blogging about my boring life.
Saturday, August 13, 2005
efficient markets
Since graduating, I've realised how much some of the stuff I learned about the world fails to describe reality. Today I shall take issue with the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH).
It took me a very long time to start playing the stock market, simply because I felt the small investor is severely disadvantaged. We do not have the information resources of investment banks; neither do we have the economies of scale or the ROI to warrant buying this information or doing our own research. Worse still, I already lost so much money on Unit Trusts during the 2001 recession that I'm loathe to let anyone else manage my money. So I put it all in the bank earning a miserable 1% interest , and I blame the EMH.
Recently, I finally took the first steps into the market. I figured it's just for the learning experience, so if I lose money I'll consider that as tuition fees. My own experiences have since invalidated this theory, at least in Singapore. It is possible to make money, just by reading the newspaper and surfing the net.
Take the example of the casino. Everyone just knew the casino was coming. The government doesn't waste time creating a ruckus and inviting criticism over something it does not fully intend to implement. So you'd expect the stocks of companies involved in the casino to go up. In December 2004, the Business Times highlighted 3 property groups that stood to gain from the casino. Even after it was announced that we were proceeding with the casino, it took more than 2 weeks for their stock prices reacted to the news. In January, another company announced its intention to bid for projects both on Sentosa and in Marina and although the price increase was immediate, it was gradual enough for an attentive investor to hop in early and make a decent gain.
The other thing is information tools. SGX actually provides free stock analyst reports for anyone to download. So In January, I started an experiment - I dumped 1 lot of every stock rated a strong buy into Yahoo Finance, to test how good these recommendations are. Since then, they have gone up a decent 9%.
I hate to waste a good blog entry. Which is why I'm still posting this after I equalised the weight of each share in the portfolio and realised that the average increase was reduced to only 4%. Then I compared it to the STI which went up 10% over the same period. So does that mean if you randomly picked 10 stocks, you'd do better than following the recommendations of investment banks? So much for the premise of the post bah.
Not satisfied with their overwhelming information advantage, they are now out to mislead the public as well?? Sigh don't invest lah.
Table 1:
It took me a very long time to start playing the stock market, simply because I felt the small investor is severely disadvantaged. We do not have the information resources of investment banks; neither do we have the economies of scale or the ROI to warrant buying this information or doing our own research. Worse still, I already lost so much money on Unit Trusts during the 2001 recession that I'm loathe to let anyone else manage my money. So I put it all in the bank earning a miserable 1% interest , and I blame the EMH.
Recently, I finally took the first steps into the market. I figured it's just for the learning experience, so if I lose money I'll consider that as tuition fees. My own experiences have since invalidated this theory, at least in Singapore. It is possible to make money, just by reading the newspaper and surfing the net.
Take the example of the casino. Everyone just knew the casino was coming. The government doesn't waste time creating a ruckus and inviting criticism over something it does not fully intend to implement. So you'd expect the stocks of companies involved in the casino to go up. In December 2004, the Business Times highlighted 3 property groups that stood to gain from the casino. Even after it was announced that we were proceeding with the casino, it took more than 2 weeks for their stock prices reacted to the news. In January, another company announced its intention to bid for projects both on Sentosa and in Marina and although the price increase was immediate, it was gradual enough for an attentive investor to hop in early and make a decent gain.
The other thing is information tools. SGX actually provides free stock analyst reports for anyone to download. So In January, I started an experiment - I dumped 1 lot of every stock rated a strong buy into Yahoo Finance, to test how good these recommendations are. Since then, they have gone up a decent 9%.
I hate to waste a good blog entry. Which is why I'm still posting this after I equalised the weight of each share in the portfolio and realised that the average increase was reduced to only 4%. Then I compared it to the STI which went up 10% over the same period. So does that mean if you randomly picked 10 stocks, you'd do better than following the recommendations of investment banks? So much for the premise of the post bah.
Not satisfied with their overwhelming information advantage, they are now out to mislead the public as well?? Sigh don't invest lah.
Table 1:
| Symbol | Last Trade | Paid | Gain | |
| A03.SI | 3:28am | 0.115 | 0.14 | -17.86% |
| E02.SI | 5:05am | 0.45 | 0.37 | 21.62% |
| 5DP.SI | 4:48am | 0.275 | 0.27 | -5.82% |
| H14.SI | 4:58am | 0.22 | 0.25 | -12.00% |
| H64.SI | 4:53am | 1.37 | 1.28 | 5.22% |
| S19.SI | 5:05am | 0.49 | 0.33 | 48.48% |
| S63.SI | 5:05am | 2.58 | 2.27 | 13.66% |
| T03.SI | 5:05am | 0.54 | 0.39 | 38.46% |
| 577.SI | 3:55am | 0.145 | 0.16 | -9.38% |
| 596.SI | 4:58am | 0.18 | 0.3 | -40.00% |
| - | - | |||
| Average | 4.24% | |||
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
tomorrow governance
This is the second of a four-part critique on Tomorrow.sg that started here following a conversation between two concerned friends. We intend to cover interface, filtering, sorting and software considerations for suggested improvements to Tomorrow.sg.
Introduction
There are many things that people blog about and Singapore has excellent blogs for each one. Thoughts on personal life, food, politics and sex, just to name a few. As a portal into the Singapore Blogosphere, Tomorrow.sg has captured the attention of the online community and wields a significant influence over their perception of Singapore and what's important to Singaporeans. This is a great responsibility and in order to sustain its pre-eminence, it is important to consider what system of governance should be chosen by the editorial committee in order to ensure their relevance to the community.
So here are a few to choose from, with merits weighed. They are ordered from top-down to bottom-up.
Autocracy
Under an autocracy, the selection of articles would be carried out by a self-appointed person or persons, as they see fit. The merit of this system is its simplicity. It draws its strength from the reputation of its editors and in this case, the presence of individuals such as Mr Brown is clearly a boost to credibility. Some countries have benefited from the wisdom of enlightened autocrats and Tomorrow.sg can gain in the same way, but this is highly dependent on the expertise and reputation of its team. With no clear agenda (either individual or collective), it is unclear what direction this model will head in.
Representative Democracy
Under this model, the composition of the editorial team can be determined by the users. The advantage of this is that it allows the tapping of much wider expertise, from elites in different circles. Outspoken dignitaries such as Catherine Lim for politics, Colin Goh for arts and culture, Jamie Yeo for music and entertainment or other prominent bloggers such as Singapore Angle could also be proposed to provided additional expertise and credibility. For balanced coverage, editorial portfolios could also be introduced to focus on various aspects of Singapore.
We expect the immediate reaction to a proposal such as this would be imposing so much structure takes the fun out of Tomorrow.sg. People also love working for startups, and abhor the bureaucracy and hierarchy of large corporations. Unfortunately, that may be a necessary evil of being big.
Democracy
The most exciting model is one in which everyone is boss. Any user can make a submission and every submission will be shown - initially. An introduction of a rating system such as that employed by Slashdot will allow readers themselves to determine what they want to read, and what they don't. When a post's ratings fall below a certain threshold, it is archived or removed. (Even if not adopted for the posts themselves, this could be an interesting system to apply to comments.) Of course the drawback to this system is that it is the most technically challenging to implement and it is potentially dangerous to open the gates to potentially obscene postings, even if only for a while.
Conclusion
This segment examines possible editorial models that could be applied to Tomorrow.sg. Quite clearly we are currently at the first one, which is also the simplest. But in order to reach a wider audience and establish greater credibility, it would be important to progress to a more democratic model. Ultimately, the current editors have probably gained a greater insight of other considerations through their own experiences, and some hybrid model might be most suitable.
Introduction
There are many things that people blog about and Singapore has excellent blogs for each one. Thoughts on personal life, food, politics and sex, just to name a few. As a portal into the Singapore Blogosphere, Tomorrow.sg has captured the attention of the online community and wields a significant influence over their perception of Singapore and what's important to Singaporeans. This is a great responsibility and in order to sustain its pre-eminence, it is important to consider what system of governance should be chosen by the editorial committee in order to ensure their relevance to the community.
So here are a few to choose from, with merits weighed. They are ordered from top-down to bottom-up.
Autocracy
Under an autocracy, the selection of articles would be carried out by a self-appointed person or persons, as they see fit. The merit of this system is its simplicity. It draws its strength from the reputation of its editors and in this case, the presence of individuals such as Mr Brown is clearly a boost to credibility. Some countries have benefited from the wisdom of enlightened autocrats and Tomorrow.sg can gain in the same way, but this is highly dependent on the expertise and reputation of its team. With no clear agenda (either individual or collective), it is unclear what direction this model will head in.
Representative Democracy
Under this model, the composition of the editorial team can be determined by the users. The advantage of this is that it allows the tapping of much wider expertise, from elites in different circles. Outspoken dignitaries such as Catherine Lim for politics, Colin Goh for arts and culture, Jamie Yeo for music and entertainment or other prominent bloggers such as Singapore Angle could also be proposed to provided additional expertise and credibility. For balanced coverage, editorial portfolios could also be introduced to focus on various aspects of Singapore.
We expect the immediate reaction to a proposal such as this would be imposing so much structure takes the fun out of Tomorrow.sg. People also love working for startups, and abhor the bureaucracy and hierarchy of large corporations. Unfortunately, that may be a necessary evil of being big.
Democracy
The most exciting model is one in which everyone is boss. Any user can make a submission and every submission will be shown - initially. An introduction of a rating system such as that employed by Slashdot will allow readers themselves to determine what they want to read, and what they don't. When a post's ratings fall below a certain threshold, it is archived or removed. (Even if not adopted for the posts themselves, this could be an interesting system to apply to comments.) Of course the drawback to this system is that it is the most technically challenging to implement and it is potentially dangerous to open the gates to potentially obscene postings, even if only for a while.
Conclusion
This segment examines possible editorial models that could be applied to Tomorrow.sg. Quite clearly we are currently at the first one, which is also the simplest. But in order to reach a wider audience and establish greater credibility, it would be important to progress to a more democratic model. Ultimately, the current editors have probably gained a greater insight of other considerations through their own experiences, and some hybrid model might be most suitable.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
not my cup of ndp
Today is Singapore's big day. Yet although I consider myself very patriotic, I really don't give a damn about NDP 2005. Never have, and probably never will. I'm sure the irony of this will not be lost on my friends.
I guess I'm just not one for shows - I don't watch TV and rarely movies. I don't know the meaning of a "natural high", so I am never able to immerse myself in the euphoria of a mob mentality. Nonetheless, I'm happy to see the patriotic fever rising and everyone getting into the mood.
For me, perhaps the best part of NDP was a girl I met on Sunday. She's from Hong Kong, she's been here for two months, and she tells me she loves it. When foreigners tell me they love my country, that's what really warms my heart. For the rest of us, shame on us if it takes a little celebration to make us feel Singaporean.
It is often commented that to feel Singaporean, you really have to leave Singapore. My parents always made sure we were on our best behaviour during holiday travels - they hate the image of the ugly Singaporean tourist. And I found this to be especially true during my time in the US. As the only Singaporean in many of my classes, I often felt the sensation that I was on display as an ambassador of the country and this put far more pressure on me to uphold a good public image than I ever felt back home. I really put in a lot of effort to maintain a wholesome image of balanced academic and social life, to dispel any inkling of Singaporeans as antisocial muggers. And as president of our little association, my main focus was encouraging my fellow countrymen to mix around outside of the Singaporean cliques.
So for now, I'm just looking forward to the fulfillment of numerous promises to come visit our little island. And in the meantime, I guess I'll just be nice to tourists and do what I can to make their time here a pleasant experience. We don't need a casino to keep them happy. That would be my best gift to Singapore.
I guess I'm just not one for shows - I don't watch TV and rarely movies. I don't know the meaning of a "natural high", so I am never able to immerse myself in the euphoria of a mob mentality. Nonetheless, I'm happy to see the patriotic fever rising and everyone getting into the mood.
For me, perhaps the best part of NDP was a girl I met on Sunday. She's from Hong Kong, she's been here for two months, and she tells me she loves it. When foreigners tell me they love my country, that's what really warms my heart. For the rest of us, shame on us if it takes a little celebration to make us feel Singaporean.
It is often commented that to feel Singaporean, you really have to leave Singapore. My parents always made sure we were on our best behaviour during holiday travels - they hate the image of the ugly Singaporean tourist. And I found this to be especially true during my time in the US. As the only Singaporean in many of my classes, I often felt the sensation that I was on display as an ambassador of the country and this put far more pressure on me to uphold a good public image than I ever felt back home. I really put in a lot of effort to maintain a wholesome image of balanced academic and social life, to dispel any inkling of Singaporeans as antisocial muggers. And as president of our little association, my main focus was encouraging my fellow countrymen to mix around outside of the Singaporean cliques.
So for now, I'm just looking forward to the fulfillment of numerous promises to come visit our little island. And in the meantime, I guess I'll just be nice to tourists and do what I can to make their time here a pleasant experience. We don't need a casino to keep them happy. That would be my best gift to Singapore.
Monday, August 08, 2005
tomorrow once more
"It seems that Tomorrow.sg has no purpose, no structure, no quality control and no quality in general." - link
Given the recent (brief) flurry of attention my recent post received, my friend and I spoke about the issue a little more and we thought that sharing our views could generate some discussion which might ultimately help the editorial committee. If you think my earlier characterisation of Tomorrow.sg was unfair, I fully agree because I made several unsubstantiated statements. And besides, in this country, the only good criticism is constructive criticism. So we're trying to be constructive now.
Our suggestions can be roughly categorised into the following sections:
1) User Interface
2) Software simplicity vs complexity (customisation and its headaches)
3) Content Management (Organisation)
4) Content Selection (Filtering) link added 10/08/05
We'll deal with the first and least controversial point about the interface first, and address the others in later posts.
With regards to the interface, the site is pretty and quite professional looking. But it might be possible to optimize it further for purposes of navigation and functionality as there's a lot of wasted space.
To begin with, the banner graphic is too big and we hope that the flag icons go after National Day. Although the stars and crescent do give the site a slightly patriotic flavour, this might be to the site's detriment if Tomorrow wants to be regarded as an impartial news aggregator.
Then there is also a lot of white space. Perhaps this is to prevent the blog from being too cluttered, but to me as a user it means a lot more clicking and scrolling. Compare with two other top blogs with user-contributions: BoingBoing and Slashdot for efficient use of space despite larger fonts. A lot of empty space is also created by lists of links and trackbacks. It might help to save this space and make the font bigger.
We also feel that there is a lot of unecessary information in the dual sidebars, and they are not well organised. Here is a list of the items on the front page:
1) Home/About/Contact/Archives/View/News - If people want this, they will look for it. So it can easily be fit in a horizontal bar or at the bottom of the page instead of occupying prime front page space.
2) User Login - See LiveJournal for an excellent implementation of space conservation.
3) Top Contributors - It's more of an ego thing isn't it ... or perhaps incentive for people to find content for the site?
4) Popular Tags - Somewhat useful, but as I will argue later, a more structured means of organising would be more helpful. This would be a good user-defined complement.
5) News from Editors - Is this really necessary since there's already a link to it on the navigation menu?
6) Support Us/Google Ad - Well, I guess the money has to come from somewhere ...
Of course this just relfects our own opinion of browsing habits. A good way to see which parts of the main page are extraneous would be to track the number of clicks for each of the various portions. The less used sections could then be removed, making the site look cleaner and more sleek.
Also, if we were asked to consult for the design of the site, we would remove the entire right sidebar and on the left we'd have (in descending order)
1) Smaller Login Box
2) Money Spinners (assuming its a necessary evil)
3) Popular Entries
4) Top Contributors
5) Topical Directory
The rest of the items can go below. That's all we have to say on interface, and that's all I'm going to write for now. I'll wait to see how well received this feedback is before I venture onto thinner ice. If you managed to read this far (I hate long posts), here's a wee bit about us.
For credibility reasons I felt it was important to do a simple intro. I also don't want people to think we're smart asses who make cheap talk, so I hope our ideas will be weighed on their own merits. We are both concerned Singaporeans and avid members of the online community and we like the fact that Tomorrow.sg is trying to bring the blogger community together. Both of us also have some expertise in these matters as we've had formal tech educations and so could code Tomorrow.sg from scratch ourselves if we really had to (although in my case it would become NextYear.sg).
The reason why we make these suggestions is because we know that the technical and content management for a site like this can be a formidable task and it would be a pity to see such good effort not attain its full potential. We honestly feel that Tomorrow.sg can be a powerful channel and offers an alternative to the mainstream media for people to get fresh perspectives on matters close to their hearts.
Given the recent (brief) flurry of attention my recent post received, my friend and I spoke about the issue a little more and we thought that sharing our views could generate some discussion which might ultimately help the editorial committee. If you think my earlier characterisation of Tomorrow.sg was unfair, I fully agree because I made several unsubstantiated statements. And besides, in this country, the only good criticism is constructive criticism. So we're trying to be constructive now.
Our suggestions can be roughly categorised into the following sections:
1) User Interface
2) Software simplicity vs complexity (customisation and its headaches)
3) Content Management (Organisation)
4) Content Selection (Filtering) link added 10/08/05
We'll deal with the first and least controversial point about the interface first, and address the others in later posts.
With regards to the interface, the site is pretty and quite professional looking. But it might be possible to optimize it further for purposes of navigation and functionality as there's a lot of wasted space.
To begin with, the banner graphic is too big and we hope that the flag icons go after National Day. Although the stars and crescent do give the site a slightly patriotic flavour, this might be to the site's detriment if Tomorrow wants to be regarded as an impartial news aggregator.
Then there is also a lot of white space. Perhaps this is to prevent the blog from being too cluttered, but to me as a user it means a lot more clicking and scrolling. Compare with two other top blogs with user-contributions: BoingBoing and Slashdot for efficient use of space despite larger fonts. A lot of empty space is also created by lists of links and trackbacks. It might help to save this space and make the font bigger.
We also feel that there is a lot of unecessary information in the dual sidebars, and they are not well organised. Here is a list of the items on the front page:
1) Home/About/Contact/Archives/View/News - If people want this, they will look for it. So it can easily be fit in a horizontal bar or at the bottom of the page instead of occupying prime front page space.
2) User Login - See LiveJournal for an excellent implementation of space conservation.
3) Top Contributors - It's more of an ego thing isn't it ... or perhaps incentive for people to find content for the site?
4) Popular Tags - Somewhat useful, but as I will argue later, a more structured means of organising would be more helpful. This would be a good user-defined complement.
5) News from Editors - Is this really necessary since there's already a link to it on the navigation menu?
6) Support Us/Google Ad - Well, I guess the money has to come from somewhere ...
Of course this just relfects our own opinion of browsing habits. A good way to see which parts of the main page are extraneous would be to track the number of clicks for each of the various portions. The less used sections could then be removed, making the site look cleaner and more sleek.
Also, if we were asked to consult for the design of the site, we would remove the entire right sidebar and on the left we'd have (in descending order)
1) Smaller Login Box
2) Money Spinners (assuming its a necessary evil)
3) Popular Entries
4) Top Contributors
5) Topical Directory
The rest of the items can go below. That's all we have to say on interface, and that's all I'm going to write for now. I'll wait to see how well received this feedback is before I venture onto thinner ice. If you managed to read this far (I hate long posts), here's a wee bit about us.
For credibility reasons I felt it was important to do a simple intro. I also don't want people to think we're smart asses who make cheap talk, so I hope our ideas will be weighed on their own merits. We are both concerned Singaporeans and avid members of the online community and we like the fact that Tomorrow.sg is trying to bring the blogger community together. Both of us also have some expertise in these matters as we've had formal tech educations and so could code Tomorrow.sg from scratch ourselves if we really had to (although in my case it would become NextYear.sg).
The reason why we make these suggestions is because we know that the technical and content management for a site like this can be a formidable task and it would be a pity to see such good effort not attain its full potential. We honestly feel that Tomorrow.sg can be a powerful channel and offers an alternative to the mainstream media for people to get fresh perspectives on matters close to their hearts.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
skipping church
Warning: Long, boring and philosophical post. There's another recent one below for general consumption.
Today I was already on my way to church when I decided not to go; so I turned the car around and headed home. I find such spontaneous changes from the daily routine liberating, but it was not exactly an impromptu decision. I was already dragging my feet getting out of bed, and procrastinating at the newspaper; most of the people I'd care to meet at church are away for the National Day weekend and although it's lousy reason for going to church, I guess I really do go for the people.
Part of the reason I'm not very keen on church is that I have a learning disability. At least I think so anyway - because I find it impossible to focus for more than 15 mins on a speaker, be it church, school or even work. (In fact, I was doing pretty badly in school until I decided to read the textbooks myself sometime in Sec 4.) So today I decided to go home and do a little self study, since this was an ideal opportunity to test the vast expanse of knowledge available on the internet (see previous post). Anyway, I had already slept through this week's bible study on the same topic, so it was high time I figured out what I was missing.
So I conducted a survey of the internet material on the topic, to see just how well one might fare studying the bible in (physical) isolation.
This week's sermon was on Malachi 2:17-3:18. In a nutshell, the (self-righteous) Israelites have complained that God is being unjust, rewarding the evildoers around them with good. God is not pleased, and his reply can be found in three internally-coherent sections. In verses 2:17 - 3:5, he warns that the day of judgment is coming and the wicked will get their dues. He also warns the Israelites to re-examine themselves, because not all of them are as holy as they think. Verses 3:6 - 3:12 are an aside to focus on one example of their shortcomings: that of tithing. The people are reprimanded for skimping on their offerings. God challenges them to give all and see if they will not be richly rewarded. Verses 3:13 - 3:17 return to the topic of judgement and this time God renews his promise that those who are faithful will be spared from judgement.
Of course the question I'm asking as I read all this is how does it apply to me? After sieving through a ton of commentaries and sermons (the problem truly is information management, not acquisition), there is just too much debate over the little details like "Who are the three people in Malachi 3:1?" or "What is a refiner's fire?" But the questions that continuous come to mind are not answered, just as they are seldom answered during the Sunday sermon. This is why I think the bible study is the most important source of learning for me - and it's a real pity I'm always asleep instead of asking questions.
So finally, I came to my own conclusions of the everyday application for these verses. Parallels can easily be drawn between the condition of the Israelites and the modern day, where many evil people seem to be very successful and nice guys finish last. On the one hand we can take heart that the day of judgement will come, but on the other we have to heed the warning that it is not enough to be Christian only in name, but also indeed. Else we might be consumed instead of refined in the fire of God. And of course, don't forget to give back to God.
I do wonder how anyone could deliver an hour-long sermon on this.
Just for the record, I found the two sources of greatest interest to be Sermons on The Prophet Malachi Exposition by Max A Forsythe Christ Covenant Reformed (PCA) and the book Malachi - God's Unchanging Love by Walter C. Kaiser, Jr.
Today I was already on my way to church when I decided not to go; so I turned the car around and headed home. I find such spontaneous changes from the daily routine liberating, but it was not exactly an impromptu decision. I was already dragging my feet getting out of bed, and procrastinating at the newspaper; most of the people I'd care to meet at church are away for the National Day weekend and although it's lousy reason for going to church, I guess I really do go for the people.
Part of the reason I'm not very keen on church is that I have a learning disability. At least I think so anyway - because I find it impossible to focus for more than 15 mins on a speaker, be it church, school or even work. (In fact, I was doing pretty badly in school until I decided to read the textbooks myself sometime in Sec 4.) So today I decided to go home and do a little self study, since this was an ideal opportunity to test the vast expanse of knowledge available on the internet (see previous post). Anyway, I had already slept through this week's bible study on the same topic, so it was high time I figured out what I was missing.
So I conducted a survey of the internet material on the topic, to see just how well one might fare studying the bible in (physical) isolation.
This week's sermon was on Malachi 2:17-3:18. In a nutshell, the (self-righteous) Israelites have complained that God is being unjust, rewarding the evildoers around them with good. God is not pleased, and his reply can be found in three internally-coherent sections. In verses 2:17 - 3:5, he warns that the day of judgment is coming and the wicked will get their dues. He also warns the Israelites to re-examine themselves, because not all of them are as holy as they think. Verses 3:6 - 3:12 are an aside to focus on one example of their shortcomings: that of tithing. The people are reprimanded for skimping on their offerings. God challenges them to give all and see if they will not be richly rewarded. Verses 3:13 - 3:17 return to the topic of judgement and this time God renews his promise that those who are faithful will be spared from judgement.
Of course the question I'm asking as I read all this is how does it apply to me? After sieving through a ton of commentaries and sermons (the problem truly is information management, not acquisition), there is just too much debate over the little details like "Who are the three people in Malachi 3:1?" or "What is a refiner's fire?" But the questions that continuous come to mind are not answered, just as they are seldom answered during the Sunday sermon. This is why I think the bible study is the most important source of learning for me - and it's a real pity I'm always asleep instead of asking questions.
So finally, I came to my own conclusions of the everyday application for these verses. Parallels can easily be drawn between the condition of the Israelites and the modern day, where many evil people seem to be very successful and nice guys finish last. On the one hand we can take heart that the day of judgement will come, but on the other we have to heed the warning that it is not enough to be Christian only in name, but also indeed. Else we might be consumed instead of refined in the fire of God. And of course, don't forget to give back to God.
I do wonder how anyone could deliver an hour-long sermon on this.
Just for the record, I found the two sources of greatest interest to be Sermons on The Prophet Malachi Exposition by Max A Forsythe Christ Covenant Reformed (PCA) and the book Malachi - God's Unchanging Love by Walter C. Kaiser, Jr.
information gateway
I just returned from a thoroughly enjoyable night out with an old friend. He is currently partway through his masters degree at a top American engineering college and he spent the entire evening preaching the virtues of information on the internet and the need to manage it. He also lamented the lack of internet awareness among Singaporeans in general.
I used to think I was an information junkie. I mean, I read the NYTimes, CNN, BBC, and IHT in addition to the Straits Times. And that doesn't even count my niche news sources, periodicals and blogs. In fact, it got so bad that I would just get glued to the internet reading the same headline news from different sources. Finally, I came to the conclusion that current affairs knowledge is too transient to waste so much time on, and that was when I switched to reading books.
However, when I compare my reading habits to his, I may as well be reading comic books. This guys reads with purpose. I've since obtained a long list of his favorite news feeds from popular sites such as slashdot to others I had never heard of such as the Internet Archive, which you can refer to the next time you encounter a broken link. (Hmm, I wonder if this works for articles that STI has archived; interesting how two usages of the word have such different implications for their availability) It was really great hanging out but he was making me itch to get online again, so I suggested we go home so that I could configure my Bloglines to ensure I was getting the maximum utility from it.
We also discussed blogging, and Tomorrow.sg. We're both pretty disappointed with the general quality and especially the downhill trend that the recent postings have followed, especially when compared to BoingBoing which it is supposedly modelled after, which I had only just started reading. It seems that Tomorrow.sg has no purpose, no structure, no quality control and no quality in general. Clearly it is intended to cater to a mainstream that I do not fall under, but I see no reason why they cannot use categorisation to implement some market segmentation and appeal to a wider audience. Can it be that there are so few thoughtful bloggers in Singapore that one is better off just reading the good ones through RSS feeds? Will blogs ever provide a sufficiently reliable source of opinion or news to balance the mainstream media? So we spent an hour lamenting the Singapore blogging scene. It was ironic because we were sitting in Hideout, citadel of Singapore blogging. (I don't like this new Hideout management and their choice of music.)
Added later: If you came visiting from Tomorrow.sg, you might want to read a more thoughtful and objective treatment of this subject here.
After this evening, I'll never look at the internet in the same way again. I've been hovering around the information gateway for too long, it's time to take a step through it.
I used to think I was an information junkie. I mean, I read the NYTimes, CNN, BBC, and IHT in addition to the Straits Times. And that doesn't even count my niche news sources, periodicals and blogs. In fact, it got so bad that I would just get glued to the internet reading the same headline news from different sources. Finally, I came to the conclusion that current affairs knowledge is too transient to waste so much time on, and that was when I switched to reading books.
However, when I compare my reading habits to his, I may as well be reading comic books. This guys reads with purpose. I've since obtained a long list of his favorite news feeds from popular sites such as slashdot to others I had never heard of such as the Internet Archive, which you can refer to the next time you encounter a broken link. (Hmm, I wonder if this works for articles that STI has archived; interesting how two usages of the word have such different implications for their availability) It was really great hanging out but he was making me itch to get online again, so I suggested we go home so that I could configure my Bloglines to ensure I was getting the maximum utility from it.
We also discussed blogging, and Tomorrow.sg. We're both pretty disappointed with the general quality and especially the downhill trend that the recent postings have followed, especially when compared to BoingBoing which it is supposedly modelled after, which I had only just started reading. It seems that Tomorrow.sg has no purpose, no structure, no quality control and no quality in general. Clearly it is intended to cater to a mainstream that I do not fall under, but I see no reason why they cannot use categorisation to implement some market segmentation and appeal to a wider audience. Can it be that there are so few thoughtful bloggers in Singapore that one is better off just reading the good ones through RSS feeds? Will blogs ever provide a sufficiently reliable source of opinion or news to balance the mainstream media? So we spent an hour lamenting the Singapore blogging scene. It was ironic because we were sitting in Hideout, citadel of Singapore blogging. (I don't like this new Hideout management and their choice of music.)
Added later: If you came visiting from Tomorrow.sg, you might want to read a more thoughtful and objective treatment of this subject here.
After this evening, I'll never look at the internet in the same way again. I've been hovering around the information gateway for too long, it's time to take a step through it.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
food for thought
Over lunch today, we lamented the dearth of good food in the north-west. I will be moving to that area to work soon, and apparently there just is no good food there. Just take a look at this special feature by Makansutra, showing the 15 Singapore Hawker Legends.
Do you see any in the West? Do you? Do you? I think Toa Payoh is about as far west as it gets. Or maybe Maxwell Market. This leads me to the distressing conclusion that all the good food is in the East. This is particularly sad for those of us in the West.
What I also find interesting is that many of these stalls are in famous hawker centres. Places like Maxwell Road or Old Airport Road or Serangoon Garden hawker centres seem to have a disproportionate amount of good food. This leads to the second conclusion that all the good food flocks together - and none of it is in the west. This makes us in the west damn sad, hungry and emaciated.
If I postulate that demand for good food should be distributed evenly across the island, why then is the supply of good food seemingly lumped into pockets, on the eastern side? Over both lunch and dinner, I posed this question to two friends, and they both tell me that the more good food in one place, the more people will go there. Apparently, Metcalfe's Law applies to food as well - if there is a variety of good food, there is an exponentially stronger draw because there is something for everyone and a variety of good food like satay or carrot cake will complement each other. However, in the case of foods that make up a meal by themself such as Bak Kut Teh or Chicken Rice or Hor Fun, this theory should not apply because they should be able to draw the crowds on their own. So there should still be stalls doling out good food and attracting crowds, even in ulu and nondescript coffee shops as long as they are within HDB estates.
We also learned in social studies that people will go to Sim Lim to buy computer parts or Queensway for shoes because there is more variety to choose from and prices to compare. But in the case of food, this doesn't apply because when you go to Serangoon Garden for Kway Chap, you know precisely which Kway Chap stall you are heading for, and anyway there is only one. So why does it matter whether the other stalls are any good?
My own theory is that a food abyss like the West should attract lots of hawkers, because there are tons of hungry people and nothing good to eat. So if you set up there by yourself, you may not have the pulling power to make people come all the way from Changi to eat your wonderful chicken rice, but you would already be surrounded by a vast hinterland of poor hungry souls who would make you a millionaire just by patronising your stall once a week.
It makes an awful lot of sense to me, why don't the hawkers see it that way?
Does anyone have food recommendation for the Western regions of the island?
(I know I'm just throwing this question to the wind because this blog only gets about 5 readers a day and two of them are probably me. Two more are overseas and have most likely never travelled further west than Clementi. But nevertheless helpful suggestions from the last guy would be very much appreciated.)
Do you see any in the West? Do you? Do you? I think Toa Payoh is about as far west as it gets. Or maybe Maxwell Market. This leads me to the distressing conclusion that all the good food is in the East. This is particularly sad for those of us in the West.
What I also find interesting is that many of these stalls are in famous hawker centres. Places like Maxwell Road or Old Airport Road or Serangoon Garden hawker centres seem to have a disproportionate amount of good food. This leads to the second conclusion that all the good food flocks together - and none of it is in the west. This makes us in the west damn sad, hungry and emaciated.
If I postulate that demand for good food should be distributed evenly across the island, why then is the supply of good food seemingly lumped into pockets, on the eastern side? Over both lunch and dinner, I posed this question to two friends, and they both tell me that the more good food in one place, the more people will go there. Apparently, Metcalfe's Law applies to food as well - if there is a variety of good food, there is an exponentially stronger draw because there is something for everyone and a variety of good food like satay or carrot cake will complement each other. However, in the case of foods that make up a meal by themself such as Bak Kut Teh or Chicken Rice or Hor Fun, this theory should not apply because they should be able to draw the crowds on their own. So there should still be stalls doling out good food and attracting crowds, even in ulu and nondescript coffee shops as long as they are within HDB estates.
We also learned in social studies that people will go to Sim Lim to buy computer parts or Queensway for shoes because there is more variety to choose from and prices to compare. But in the case of food, this doesn't apply because when you go to Serangoon Garden for Kway Chap, you know precisely which Kway Chap stall you are heading for, and anyway there is only one. So why does it matter whether the other stalls are any good?
My own theory is that a food abyss like the West should attract lots of hawkers, because there are tons of hungry people and nothing good to eat. So if you set up there by yourself, you may not have the pulling power to make people come all the way from Changi to eat your wonderful chicken rice, but you would already be surrounded by a vast hinterland of poor hungry souls who would make you a millionaire just by patronising your stall once a week.
It makes an awful lot of sense to me, why don't the hawkers see it that way?
Does anyone have food recommendation for the Western regions of the island?
(I know I'm just throwing this question to the wind because this blog only gets about 5 readers a day and two of them are probably me. Two more are overseas and have most likely never travelled further west than Clementi. But nevertheless helpful suggestions from the last guy would be very much appreciated.)
Monday, August 01, 2005
first seeds of scholar thought
I'm currently reading Social Psychology by Aronson, Wilson and Akert. In it, they make mention of a phenomenon called the self-fulfilling prophecy:
This particular passage struck a chord because it is similar to something I have often wondered about government scholars - do they perform well because they are inherently superior, or does the organisation have to justify offering them the scholarship and hence gives them more opportnities to distinguish themselves? I'm sure non-scholars working alongside must harbor such thoughts, although they have never been explicitly articulated to me.
A related question is whether they are really as selective as they would have the public think. This stems from a friend's personal experience when he told the board truthfully that he was not particularly interested to that line of work, but they gave it to him anyway. I reasoned then that he had all the necessary attributes to be a successful scholar, and they intended to rely on the grooming process to complete his personal development. So in some sense it's probably like a ballot among the top tier of candidates, not necessarily the topmost ones who get it.
And if a scholar is truly brilliant, would he remain with the organisation where bureaucracy always creates resistance to new ideas? Or would he prefer to strike out on his own, or join the private sector, where pay seems to be more commensurate with ability and contribution? I think passion for country is probably still the only thing that will retain people in the civil service in the long term. While the public seems fixated on excessive pay, it seems a fair compensation for the gruelling 24/7 hours that ministers and civil servants have to put in to fulfill their duties. If you had their capabilities, would you rather semi-retire and enjoy a comfortable life from your late forties on or continue to slug it out in the public arena until you are 80? Why does Tony Tan keep wanting to quit and the government keep pulling him back?
It's been a very long week and I don't really know where this is going, so I shall end off here. Perhaps some other night, I shall pick up the threads of thought again.
They first entered elementary school classrooms and administered a test. They then informed each teacher that, according to the test, a few specific students were bloomers - that is, they were about to take off and perform extremely well. The mere fact that the teachers were led to expect these students to do well caused a reliable improvement in their performance. This striking phenomenon is no fluke; it has been replicated a number of times in a wide variety of schools.
[The striking improvement is attributed to increased attention and respect from the teachers, albeit unconsciously]
-Rosenthal, R. (1995) Critiquing Pygmalion: A 25-year perspective. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 4, 171-172.
This particular passage struck a chord because it is similar to something I have often wondered about government scholars - do they perform well because they are inherently superior, or does the organisation have to justify offering them the scholarship and hence gives them more opportnities to distinguish themselves? I'm sure non-scholars working alongside must harbor such thoughts, although they have never been explicitly articulated to me.
A related question is whether they are really as selective as they would have the public think. This stems from a friend's personal experience when he told the board truthfully that he was not particularly interested to that line of work, but they gave it to him anyway. I reasoned then that he had all the necessary attributes to be a successful scholar, and they intended to rely on the grooming process to complete his personal development. So in some sense it's probably like a ballot among the top tier of candidates, not necessarily the topmost ones who get it.
And if a scholar is truly brilliant, would he remain with the organisation where bureaucracy always creates resistance to new ideas? Or would he prefer to strike out on his own, or join the private sector, where pay seems to be more commensurate with ability and contribution? I think passion for country is probably still the only thing that will retain people in the civil service in the long term. While the public seems fixated on excessive pay, it seems a fair compensation for the gruelling 24/7 hours that ministers and civil servants have to put in to fulfill their duties. If you had their capabilities, would you rather semi-retire and enjoy a comfortable life from your late forties on or continue to slug it out in the public arena until you are 80? Why does Tony Tan keep wanting to quit and the government keep pulling him back?
It's been a very long week and I don't really know where this is going, so I shall end off here. Perhaps some other night, I shall pick up the threads of thought again.
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